cute evangelistWhoever it was one of the most photographed supermodels in the worldhas been living confined for almost five years. Now she is finally ready to share her story.
Evangelista, 56, breaks the silence on the emotional and physical pain that has cast a shadow over his life in recent years, after he underwent CoolSculptinga popular method of “fat freezing” (cryolipolysis) approved by the FDA in 2010 which has been promoted as an alternative non-invasive liposuction. The former model claims that this technique left her “permanently deformed” and “brutally disfigured”.
Evangelista filed a lawsuit in September demanding $50 million in damages from CoolSculpting’s parent company, Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc.claiming that he has been unable to work since underwent seven CoolSculpting sessions at a dermatologist’s office from August 2015 to February 2016.
“I can no longer live like this, hidden and ashamed. Simply I couldn’t live with this pain anymore. I am ready to finally talk”, she reveals to the magazine People in tears in this week’s cover story.
Three months after the treatments, Evangelista says she began to notice bumps on the chin, thighs, and bra area. The same areas as had wanted to shrink suddenly they were growing. AND hardening. then it numb.
“I tried to fix it, thinking i was doing something wrong”, says Evangelista, for what he began to do diet and more exercise. “I ended up not eating anything. I thought she was losing her mind.” Finally, in June 2016 he went to his doctor.
“I dropped my robe,” he recalls. “I was crying and I said, ‘I haven’t eaten, I’m starving. ‘What am I doing wrong?‘” When he diagnosed paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH), she says, “I was like, ‘What the hell is that?’ and he told me that no amount of diet or exercise was going to fix it”.
PAH is a rare side effect It affects less than 1 percent of patients with CoolSculptingwhere the freezing process causes the affected adipose tissue thickens and expands.
“Patients are going to have something reduced, and now it’s enlarged. And the problem with PAH is that, in some cases, it may not go awaysays Dr. Alan Matarasso, a New York City plastic surgeon and professor at Northwell School of Medicine (he has never treated Evangelista). “In many circumstances, the affected areas are no longer suitable for liposuction as they would have been in the beginning.”
In a statement, a representative of CoolSculpting stated that the procedure “has been well-studied with more than 100 scientific publications and more than 11 million treatments performed worldwide” and added that rare side effects, known as PAHs, “continue to be well-documented in clinical data. CoolSculpting for patients and healthcare providers.
Evangelista alleges that when his doctor contacted CoolSculpting about your PAH, the company offered to pay for liposuction with a surgeon of their choosing, a specialist she says they claimed to have used before, to correct PAH damage. Zeltiq has declined to comment on Evangelista’s specific allegations, citing pending litigation.
In his lawsuit, Evangelista adds that “on the eve” of his liposuction, he was informed that Zeltiq would cover the procedure only if he signed a confidentiality agreement. She refused and underwent the first of two full-body liposuction surgeries, which she says she paid for, in June 2016.
After the surgery, explains Evangelista, had to wear compression garments for eight weeks. Otherwise, “PAH can come back”. Which, she says, happened, even after a second liposuction in July 2017. “It wasn’t one bit better,” she says. “The lumps are raised and hard. If I walk without a girdle in a dress, I will be chafed to the point of almost bleeding. Because it is not a friction of soft fat, but of hard fat”.
She says her posture has also been affected because she can no longer “lay her arms flat at her sides. I don’t think designers want to dress me like this”.
Much of Evangelista’s story is now about regaining her confidence and sense of self. “Why do we feel the need to do these things (to our bodies)? I always knew I would grow old. And I know there are things a body goes through. But I just didn’t think I would look like this”, she laments about the bumps and she feels that she has lost her identity. “I don’t recognize myself physically, but I don’t recognize myself as a person either. ‘She’ (referring to Linda Evangelista, the supermodel) is gone.”
And although he fights daily to recover what was lost, he has one thing clear: “I’m not going to hide anymore.”
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
